Chapter 20: The Ribbon

Elias's POV

I have stood watch in three wars, and I have never watched anything the way I watched Dahlia Ekberg's left hand.

She wore a gold ring on that hand with a hollow bead in the band.

As she poured, she tilted the jug with her right, and her left thumb pressed the bead as she passed over each cup.

Six times, one drop each, thin and clear, and nothing for the cup with the white ribbon.

I saw it, and I saw Corin see it, and I did not so much as shift my feet.

Althea had told us in the grey of that morning that the guard who moves first loses the room.

So I stood still and let my commander's training hold me.

It was the hardest thing I had ever done.

Dahlia walked down the steps with the tray, and the ribbon cup stayed on the dais beside the priestess.

I had expected that.

She could not carry seven cups, and she wanted the safe one waiting where she could reach it.

Behind her, the healer climbed the dais steps with his bag.

"Forgive me, Holy One," he said to the priestess, loud enough for the front rows. "You're pale. Let me see your wrist."

The priestess froze, and he took her wrist in his long fingers and bent over it.

His body hid the table from the square.

I saw his other hand dip into the bag and come out and move across the white cloth, and then it was back in the bag.

When he stepped away, the ribbon cup stood exactly where Dahlia had left it.

It was not her cup any more.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Five Mates Let Me Burn, So I Rejected Them All from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.